Dr. Kimberly Hubenette sits down with her father, Dr. William Quan, to reflect on his journey through grief after losing his wife of 44 years, his path as an immigrant son turned lifelong dentist, and the choices that helped him survive and continue building a meaningful life.

Press play to hear a raw, generational perspective on grief, resilience, and adaptation, along with practical wisdom shaped by decades of lived experience.

In this episode, we cover:

• Navigating grief after the loss of a spouse
• The difference between surviving and tolerating loss
• Immigration, identity, and resilience across generations
• The impact of long-term partnership and shared purpose
• Three paths widows and widowers often face after loss
• Why purpose, routine, and contribution matter later in life
• Journaling as a lifelong tool for reflection and grounding
• Living with memory without being trapped by it

08:10 Working in the Family Grocery Store & Life Lessons

15:40 Marriage, Dental School Struggles & Perseverance

25:05 44-Year Marriage & the Loss of His Wife, Anna

33:40 Life After Loss – Depression, Bills, Isolation & Survival

40:20 Remarrying After Loss & Meeting His Second Wife

46:00 Life Philosophy, Values & Treating People Right

50:30 Thriving at 81, Adaptability & Lifelong Learning

📖Grid: Once in a Lifetime You Get to Start Over by Dr. Kimberly Hubenette

📖Live, Love, Survive, Thrive! by Dr. Kimberly Hubenette (COMING SOON)

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06:51 “I was used at a young age to stand up for what you believed in so that you could live and thrive in an environment.” —William Quan

19:14 “Life is not a smooth, even journey. Life is a bumpy up-and-down journey. You have your highs and your lows. You have to just hold on to that bumpy road, and you just keep going.” —William Quan

25:33 “You never get over it. You just learn to tolerate the loneliness and the grief, and you just keep going.” —William Quan 

33:12 “There are three ways of coping with the loss of your spouse: you live with it, you move with your children, or you get remarried.” —William Quan 

39:43 “When your loved one passes away, it’s your duty and your job to memorialize that person and keep going, because you have to live for your kids or your family and show them the way, because there is a reason why you’re still here.” —Kimberly Hubenette

41:47 “Keep your mind alert and open, and you will always learn stuff. Don’t close off your mind and your thinking to learning new stuff. Even at our older age, we still learn stuff.” —William Quan

44:46 “Life is not set according to a certain path. You have to cope with it.” —William Quan 

Kimberly Hubenette: Hi everybody, I’m Dr. Kimberly Hubenette, welcome to the next episode of Live, Love, Survive, Thrive!. I’m here today with my dad and my mentor for life, Dr. William Quan. We’re here talking about how to live, love, survive and thrive, just like my podcast, And today, we’re going to talk a little bit about my father’s journey through grief and how he survived after the loss of my mom, Anna. They were high school sweethearts. They did everything for the first time together. It’s a special time that I can share with him and with you all about what it is with this grief journey. Everybody is born, everybody dies, and it’s what’s in between that’s the journey in life that’s different and special to all of us. So Dad, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background and history?

Dr. William Quan: Okay. I was born in a small town called El Centro in 1944. I grew up with my parents who were from China. My dad came over in the 30s. My mom came over when she married my dad in the 40s, early 40s. We were raised, I would say conservatively. We grew up in two houses. One was an older house that was small. Then my dad built a second house right next door that was nice and roomy. He also, my dad, had a grocery store. He actually worked in his father’s grocery store first, for the first like 10 years of his life in America. He came over when he was 13 years old with basically the shirt on his back, and his dad taught him how to work in a grocery store, and how to survive in El Centro California, which was at that time a small town. Very hot in the southwestern part of the United States. And my dad learned at an early stage how to survive. He was my mentor. We didn’t talk much, but he was a good example of what to do to thrive in a new country. And one of my favorite questions he had that he asked me when I was about 17 years old, I was in high school, he asked me point blank one day after we were closing the grocery store. He goes, Will, what are you? And I thought about his question. I’m born in America, so I wanted to give my dad a serious answer. So he asked me, what are you? He actually wanted to hear that I was Chinese so I thought about his question, and I answered him thusly. I told him I am an American. And personally, I knew he did not like that answer. He didn’t hear Chinese. 

Now, as I’m 81 years old, to be. If he were alive today and he asked me the same question now being older and wiser, I have thought about that question numerous times in the past, and I would answer my dad now with an answer that would make us both happy. I would tell him I am a Chinese/American. That would have made him happy. He would hear Chinese, and I would have been happy because I put American in it. So Chinese/American. I grew up in a small town. There was a lot of prejudice in this town. There was like a white section and a section called the east side where they wanted the Chinese, the Mexicans and the blacks to live. And I happened to grow up right on the line of demarcation that separated the west from the east. I didn’t know the difference. To me, it was a normal existence. I love growing up in the neighborhood. I thrived, but I also experienced a lot of prejudice from some of my white classmates in grade school. And every time they make fun of my background as Chinese, I beat them up. I was not going to stand for prejudice from my peers, my equals. I got into a lot of fights when I was younger. And you know what I found out after I beat up my opponents? They became my friends. They didn’t make fun of me any more. And so that was my way of standing up for what I believed in. I was used to, at a young age, standing up for what you believed in so that you could live and thrive in an environment. 

So then, as I went through school, growing up, I worked in my dad’s grocery stores as a cashier. He didn’t have me stocking shelves or anything. I’d come back after school and be the cashier along with my mom. We check out the customers as they buy their stuff. But see, having grown up in a grocery store environment, I came home from school, I had my usual ice cream, my candy, my sodas, all of that. I even made bologna sandwiches at my dad’s, which I was shocked that I enjoyed eating. So I had more or less, I think, an easy life at it. And I enjoyed growing up in a grocery store. Matter of fact, when I was in high school, my counselor, a lady named Mr. Bidwell, ran me through these questions and tests to see what I would thrive in as I grew up. And I answered these questions, and I answered according to my experience and stuff. And she told me that I’d make a good grocery man. I was like 17 or 18, so I told myself I don’t want to be a grocery man. Of course, I could run a grocery store like my dad did, and my granddad did, but my dad told me to get out of the grocery business to get an education. He did everything he could to get me to get higher education. And in junior college, I excelled in science and math at a university level. I went to dental school. 

I went to the best dental school in the world. USC, University of Southern California in LA is the best dental school in the world. I often think like I was one of about 2000 applicants for this position I was applying for. I was 20 years old, applying to get into the best dental school in the world. And the Assistant Dean interviewed me, and he was one of the world’s best dentists. So the first thing out of his mouth was, I walked in, I was stiff and polished. Polished shoes, fancy tie, suit and everything. I try to make a good impression. So the first thing out of his mouth was, he says, Quan, I’m a 20 year old. He goes, first off, you don’t know shit about teeth. He shocked me with that statement, and I don’t know what he was trying to do. He was trying to like, I guess, see how I would react to an adverse situation. But see, I was smart enough to know that this guy was going to interview me and I didn’t want to make him mad at me so I didn’t argue with his statement like, you don’t know shit about teeth. So I answered, yes, sir. You’re right. I don’t know that much about teeth. Then he kept reading my transcripts, and he found out that I was from El Centro California. That day, this guy was looking for someone from a small town that was smart enough to go to the best dental school in the world. And after he graduated, to go back there and work, and spread the message of the USC philosophy of dentistry. Looking at me, my name could have been Mr. Black. He would have taken me. So I often think, what was he looking for when he interviewed me? Because like I told you, he had 2000 applicants, and he picked me out of the crowd, and he got me into dental school. When I left that interview, I was ecstatic. I was happier than heck. I knew I was in. 

However, when I went into dental school, I was already married to my wife, my high school sweetheart, and dental school was so hard. I was basically carrying 30 units a semester, whereas the normal college load was like 12 or 15 units per semester in dental school. We were carrying 30, and it was hard. It was the hardest thing I ever encountered in my life. And within the first few months, I even told my wife, dental school is too hard. I didn’t know it was this hard, and I think I’m going to quit. And my wife always helps, she’s a good wife that’ll back you in anything you do. My wife was my age. She was actually a year older. She was 21, I was 20. She was smart enough to know to give me encouragement because I was going to quit. She goes, you can do it. He didn’t pick you out of the crowd for you to fail. So I stuck it out. I endured and I went through dental school. It was the hardest thing in the world. But hey, I’d come home after school, my wife would take care of me, feed me, and give me encouragement. And we were on a strict budget. I think my dad sent us $200 a month to pay the rent, to buy groceries. Anything left over, we could go and enjoy like a hamburger or something out. But we had no money left. We learned to budget ourselves. We even went from Los Angeles, where the dental school was back to El Centro in my 64 Chevy. Like once a month, we load up in my dad’s grocery store and go back three and a half hours to LA. We live off of my dad’s grocery so we didn’t have to overextend ourselves on the budget. So that went on for four years. 

Like I told you earlier, it was the hardest thing in my world. And in my senior year, my daughter Kimberly was born to us. My wife wanted a family, and I told her, I don’t even have a job yet. I don’t even know if I’m going to graduate from dental school and work as a diner. She goes, I don’t care. I’m going to have a baby. So my daughter, Kimberly, was born. I was in the last semester of dental school. And when I saw Kimberly being born, I took my wife to the gynecology office, and my daughter was born to me. She was a cute little baby. Walking down the aisle in this bassinet, I looked in there and there was a little baby. Up until that point, my wife and I were just a couple. We were having a good time in our life being together and all. We didn’t have a major responsibility. Then I looked at my daughter, she was just born, and a boat of lightning hit me. The boat of lightning said, you are now not just a couple, you are a family. This little baby is going to trust and believe in you, because you’re going to raise her as a kid to become an adult and all. And I woke up when I saw my daughter, my baby daughter, and it changed my life like a boat of lightning hit me. And the lightning was, you’re now responsible for a third person in your life, not just your wife and you. You had a little daughter, and that changed my life completely. It was a moment of awakening. 

After dental school, when I started my practice in El Centro, California, we had two more children. Two more sons, but my sons didn’t strike me with a boat or lightning, and were responsible. I was already accepting the fact that I would have the family, so I have two more family members. And hey, we were a family with three kids. I’m now in my 55th year of practicing general dentistry. I’m not bragging, I have gotten some award from the city of San Diego that I’m one of the better dentists in San Diego. I’ve never worked a second in San Diego. But when I refer some of my special needs, my special procedure to San Diego, the specialist, they look at my dental work in my patient mouth and they go, Quan, ain’t bad. I’ve been voted one of the better dentists in Sandy Hill, and money didn’t buy those awards. They were voted by my peer specialist who liked my work, so I’m proud of that. 

So like I say, I’m in my 55th year of practicing dentistry. I’m still working at age 81. I happen to like what I’m doing. I don’t have too many other hobbies. I like to dove hunt and gun collect, but those hobbies cannot keep you going. When I’m in Sandy Hill, for the rest of the month, I only work two to three days a month in El Centro. The resident month, I’m watching TV for 8 hours a day. And you cannot have a hobby of watching TV 8 hours a day, so I come down to El Centro and practice two or three times a week. I’m 81 years old, and I’m still working. I enjoy doing what I’m doing, and I see some of my colleagues. I have one of my best friends. He’s a fellow dentist that came out of USC. He and I are different in age, two days different. He is by himself. He’s been divorced two times and lived by himself. I’ve lost my late wife from a disease 18 years ago, and I remarried my second wife about 16 years ago. I have someone in my life that gives me direction. She is not as good as my first wife, but she’s better than being by myself. Because I look at my good friend, he’s by himself. He’s 81, he looks like he’s 90 years old.

Kimberly Hubenette: How many years were you and mom married? 

Dr. William Quan: 44 years. We dated about four to five years before we got married. So I was basically with Kimberly’s mom for 50 years when she died. The grief was so major. I almost died. I felt like we were visiting her grave today talking about a nephew of mine whose wife died early and he committed suicide. I have thought about doing that myself. The pain and the grief was so bad that I could survive. Then it dawned on me my wife’s memories and her teaching. She always guided us. She wouldn’t want me to give up. She would want me to keep going as a mentor, as a tribute, to hold the family together, which I am doing at this point. 

Kimberly Hubenette: How many grandkids do you have right now? 

Dr. William Quan: I have four grandkids. 3 granddaughters, and one grandson. I have to keep them going, give them pep talks and give them experience from my path on what they’re going to encounter as they go through because life is not a smooth and even journey. Life is a bumpy up and down journey. You have your highs and your lows. Like death in a family, financial problems, no patients this day, patients tomorrow and stuff. You have to just hold on to a bumpy road and just keep going. I’ve inspired Kimberly, my dentist daughter, to follow in my footsteps, and she knows that life ain’t easy. But you have been trained to do dentistry well, and you can tolerate life whatever it has thrown at you. Like my daughter, she lost her husband. It was six years ago, and you just hang in there. You tough it out, like I am doing every time I think of my departed wife. I constantly think of her on a daily basis. When I wake up in the morning, I say good morning to her. When I go to sleep at night, I say good night to her. And the rest of the day as I’m doing my dentistry, I think of her all the time, because she is the foundation and the pivotal thing in my life that keeps me going. Without her, I wouldn’t be here right now. 

Kimberly Hubenette: So back to when she was diagnosed, what was she diagnosed with?

Dr. William Quan: She was diagnosed with myelofibrosis, which is her bone marrow turning to scar tissue. 

Kimberly Hubenette: And you had been married for how long? 

Dr. William Quan: At that point, we were married for like 42 years. She died in the hospital at 44, so we celebrate our 44th anniversary when she died that night. Once she was diagnosed with that problem, I, myself, or one of my children would always babysit my wife at the hospital in San Diego. One of us would be by her side at all times, and I quit my dental practice to be with her. My wife told me this crazy story about her dad dying when he was in his 90s, and everyone in her family was working. No one was at the hospital when her dad died, and that made her very sad. So when we went to the hospital with my sick wife, she told me that story two times. She didn’t tell me she was afraid of dying. But she told me the story two times, and I realized that my wife was afraid to be alone in case something bad happened to her, so we shut the practice down. We took turns babysitting, or someone was at the hospital every second of the day. We ate there. We slept there in the waiting room. Life wasn’t easy. Kimberly would come down on weekends and spend the weekend with us as we babysit my wife, because we loved Anna so much that we didn’t want her to be by herself in case something bad happened.

Kimberly Hubenette: So it seems like it’s been 18 years now since that happened. And as you progress through the hardship of your grief when mom passed away, I remember you were in a tailspin. Your trajectory towards not wanting to lose going down the hill to the point where I remember that you did not want to pay your bills. She did everything for you at that point. And you know listeners, sometimes, you don’t want to get out of bed. Sometimes, you don’t want to do anything, and then you think life’s gonna go around and work without you. If you don’t pay your bills, sometimes, your water might get cut off, or your electricity.

Dr. William Quan: My phone bill, they were all cut off from time to time. I didn’t even pay my federal taxes for about nine years. I think I owed like half a million dollars in back tax. 

Kimberly Hubenette: And guys, listeners, you really don’t want to do that. This is a learning experience, but we’re just here to say that life can be very challenging, and you just have to learn from others, and learn from your experiences of what others are doing to maybe not do that. And then basically, I remember that you went through this period of depression and you didn’t want to be by yourself. My brother, Derek, and his family would always pick you up and take you places, and you’d spend the night over there at their house. I remember though that you told me that you still felt alone because mom wasn’t around because she was your everything. And no matter how many people were around you, you still felt lonely. 

Dr. William Quan: I kept working during that time, and then I have many patients. They tell me now, 18 years later, when they came into my office, they could see the pain in my face, and they felt bad for me, especially one lady named Frankie Covarrubias. I was done working on her teeth. She could see the pain in my face when she got up to leave. By the time she got out of the chair, she was sobbing for me. I looked at her and I went, oh, God, damn. Like, hey, man, I don’t know what to tell my patient. They know that they can’t do anything for me. It was like something I had to cope with myself to get over it somehow. Actually, you never get over it. You just learn to tolerate the loneliness and the grief, and you just keep going. 

Kimberly Hubenette: But somehow, you did find a way to survive. Because 18 years later, you’re remarried. You do share life with somebody. 

Dr. William Quan: But it’s never the same. Your first marriage with your first wife, I think, is pivotal in our growth and acceptance of life. You learn to live with someone else, and the main thing is you love them. They take care of you. You’ll never forget them. There’s an old saying like, time takes care of everything. I go, time does not take care of everything. You just learn to tolerate it. And right now, I’m in that learning to tolerate it stage. I still get times in my life, when I’m back in El Centro living in my house with my wife that she developed our home there, I still miss her a lot.

Kimberly Hubenette: There are things that you do ritually at our house in El Centro. You keep the light on, why?

Dr. William Quan: One interesting thing that happened right after my wife died in San Diego, we waited a couple days before I took my whole family. My kids, my adult kids and my grandkids, I took them back to my house in El Centro to plan my wife’s funeral. I have this belief, rightfully so or wrongly so, that my wife, even though she’s gone, she travels with me. She’s with me. When I’m driving down to El Centro by myself, I look to the passenger side. And at first, I used to see my wife sitting there comfortably, riding with me, going home. Now, 18 years later, I don’t see her there any more. But I personally know her spirit is still with me. So everything I do, rightfully or wrongly, I have my wife’s memory in my mind on what she would want me to do. Maybe it’s not fair to my second wife because I still love my first wife. But my second wife, she gives me a life. She takes care of me, she feeds me, and she’s a good companion and stuff. She keeps me going, but not as much as my first wife’s memory keeps me going.

Kimberly Hubenette: And she serves as a second service to you, right? As secondary types of things that are different from mom, but also tell the listeners that she’s also a widow, right?

Dr. William Quan: She is a widow. She had been a widow for 10 years before I married her. She was my patient after about a year of living by myself after my late wife died. I met her randomly in a Chinese restaurant working as a waitress. My judge son, Derek, took me into this Chinese restaurant, and there was my second wife-to-be as a waitress. There’s this classic example that she did that I told her that was the smartest thing she ever did. She was a widow. She knew I was a widower. She wrote her phone number on a nice piece of paper, then it dawned on her, this is Dr. Quan, and I’m lending away because nothing is ever going to happen. So she crumpled up the phone number and threw it in the trash can. Then she watched me walk out of the restaurant, and she decided to take a chance, a gamble, a major gamble in her life. She went and picked up the trash paper from the trash can. She ran out to the parking lot, and she put it in my hand. And folks, I didn’t have to open that piece of trash paper. I knew what was on it. It was her phone number, so I opened it later. I was exactly right. It was her phone number. 

She decided to take a chance and offer me a date for something. And I had her. I dated her the next week. And when my second courtship started, I realized that my late wife and I were the same age. I wanted my second wife, someone younger, because I didn’t want someone my age to be my second wife because the same thing might happen again. So I married a younger woman. She was 13 years younger than me, and the rest is history. I’ve been with her for 15 years now. And at first, I had to fight my own family. They didn’t want me to get remarried because their memory of their mother was major. They didn’t want someone to replace her. Linda, my second wife never replaced Anna. She was just there to be with me for the second phase of my life, to get through life somehow on the straight, narrow, bumpy road, and try to live it out. 

Kimberly Hubenette: And it’s a different kind of relationship, right? So now that I know, when Mark passed away, my husband, when I ever decide to form another relationship with somebody, they’re gonna have to understand that Mark was my husband prior. And I think it is fair to say that widows and widowers know the pathway differently than people that are not widows or widowers. Not to say that all widows and widowers should remarry. Widows and widowers, however, find somebody that is open to keeping that relationship. 

Dr. William Quan: There’s a place in San Diego when I’m leaving it, come back to El Centro, it’s called Crest. And when I reach this area in Crest, it’s by El Capone, I talk to myself as I’m driving. There’s three ways a person can cope with the loss of his spouse, his or her spouse. One way is like what I did, you get remarried and have another spouse. Another way is, I have a patient, she lost her husband in El Centro about 20 years ago. She came to Crest, San Diego, and she moved in with her son and her grandchildren. That’s a second way to cope. You move away from your old town, and live with your children. Or you could, in my case, get remarried. There is a third way of coping, which is the hardest way of all. And if you lose your spouse, you grin and bear it, and you live by yourself, and try to get by. That is the hardest way that you can survive because I tried it for a year, and I could not do it. I almost died from loneliness. So there’s three ways of coping with the loss of your spouse. You live with it, you move with your children, or you get remarried. And whenever I pass this area in Crest, these three ways come into my mind. I think about it because I went one way, and Shimamoto went another, and there’s a third one, and that is the hardest thing. No one can tolerate that. 

Kimberly Hubenette: Because you’re stuck there. We want to encourage people to move forward, memorialize their loved ones and do something. Take action. Be out in the community. Do stuff with your community. Be present in life. Do you have a quote that you live by now that you’ve lived through all of this? What would you like to tell our listeners? 

Dr. William Quan: Well, one of my basic quotes that I’ve lived with all my life is you treat people the way you want to be treated your whole life. Don’t try to just make money off of you, don’t try to kiss their butt or whatever. Treat people rightfully. I’ve been telling this story to a lot of my patients recently. These patients, they’re all from different walks of life. I tell the patients, and I told them this to my daughter just yesterday, by the time you get to kindergarten, you’re like five or six years old, your parents have instilled in you the difference between doing the right and the wrong thing. You basically know how to cope with life even though you’re a kid. Then when you go into kindergarten, they teach you the different ways to get educated and to live with life. I’m gonna give over 50%, maybe 70% out of coping with life. So my successful patients in their older days, I told them, before you got to school to learn all this stuff, you already were a good person. So that’s one way I have of justifying what I do. I heard this song two days ago by Paul Anka from the 50s. The song was I did it my way. I myself, I did it my way. I live life with my spouse, we did it our way. Then that’s what helps me now in the later times of my life to cope with everything. My kids, like Dr. Kim, Judge Quan, and my young son, Greg, try to spend valuable time with me. I’m like everyone else. When you’re younger, you get to experience all this stuff. I don’t even learn to cope with this stuff. And then when you’re older, you can write a book about how to cope with everything. I’m now in my older times, and I am very realistic. I know that I might not be here in another 10 years, but I try to keep my influence on my family, which is my basic unit of my life. And to inspire and give them encouragement to keep going. 

Kimberly Hubenette: One thing I love about you is that ever since I remember, you have always written down journaled daily, and you continue to journal daily. So if I said, what did you do in January something to 1998?

Dr. William Quan: I can pick that feed out. I have a pile from the floor up to about this high of my daily journals that I wrote down. I don’t look at them, but I can tell you what you want to know like 30 years ago. I can pick that journal and tell you what I did. All my activities, my thoughts, what I ate, what my blood sugars were and stuff. My MD told me to start writing everything down, because I’m a diabetic. What I ate, what my blood sugars were, and that way, you have a record. Because our memory, we cannot be good or smart enough to go back and check everything. It’s all written down. Yes, I do that. And Kimberly wants to read my journals. They’re like, who knows, three or 4000 pages?

Kimberly Hubenette: Well, nowadays, we can digitize it. Even create a book about your life. I’ve written a few books now. I’ve written GRID: Once in a Lifetime, You Get to Start Over, which was a memorial to my husband, Mark. It was about surviving in the wilderness, as well as surviving in life. It basically shares a lady that goes out into the wilderness after her husband passes away. And some people thought that it was me. Maybe it was me, but it was a lot of things that Mark had taught me about the wilderness because he was a survivor. And then the second book is going to come out pretty soon, called the Itty Bitty: 15 Steps to Live, Love and Survive. And that one’s going to come out pretty soon. And then my third book, the name of this podcast, Live, Love, Survive, Thrive!, is also going to come out pretty soon. So the theme is, Live, Love, Survive, Thrive!. And I tell my listeners that you have a journey in life. If you’re very religious, or if you’re spiritual, there’s something out there that keeps us alive and created us. No matter if you believe in God, Jesus Christ, Buddha, or just spirituality itself, there’s something that has created our human race and our world. So when your loved one passes away, you’re still here, and it’s your duty and your job to memorialize that person and keep going, because you have to live for your kids, your family, or your children and show them the way, because there is a reason why you’re still here.

Dr. William Quan: Along the same lines, Kimberly, of what you’re doing with your books, putting your thoughts down on books and mind, putting my thoughts down on sheets of paper, reading partially this book by Tom Hom. He’s a mayor, a city councilman of San Diego. We had a successful real estate and restaurant chain. Tom Hom, he wrote this book called the Rabbit on a Bumpy Road. He was a rabbit. His birth animal was a rabbit, and his journey through life was a bumpy road. Like I told you earlier, it wasn’t smooth. He wrote down all of his experiences, why he did this, why he did that. When I read his book, it mirrors stuff that I’ve done, and stuff that Kimberly has done. So we all can write a book about our life. Because you know what? We can share, because every one of us has a different path through life. We could share that path with everyone who reads the book, and they can learn from what we’ve done. Because the way I did it might not be the way Kimberly will do it, but she can learn that people experience similar things, and they cope with it differently. So I keep these crazy books in the bathroom. When I’m sitting there, I glance through them and learn stuff. Even at my age, I tell myself, at 81, I’m still learning something every day. So you keep your mind alert and open, and you will always learn stuff. Don’t close off your mind and think about learning new stuff. Even at our older age, we still learn stuff.

Kimberly Hubenette: That’s why this is called, live, love, survive and thrive, right? And in my mind, dad, you’re a survivor and a thriver. You’re thriving. Now in life at 81 years old, you’re thriving, wouldn’t you say so?

Dr. William Quan: I think I’m doing okay, like my second wife, Linda. My kids don’t know her too well, but I’ve lived with her for 15 years. She’s telling me all that she had the same thing. She went through life going up and down, but she ended up now with me. When she was growing up in China, it wasn’t easy. It was under Mao. Like to put your thumb on you and make sure you went a certain path. And Linda had to go a certain path. I’ve learned a lot about Chinese people from my wife because she’s a FOB. That means Freight on Board. She was born in China, whereas I’m an ABC Chinese. American Born Chinese born in America. Like I told you guys earlier, I’m American Born Chinese. Linda’s a Chinese Born Chinese. And I’ve learned stuff being with her. And people tell me, how do you sit in her ways? But you know, I’m very open. I’m very adaptable. I can learn from you, I can learn from her, and I’m learning all the time, and I happen in life being with Linda. But she is not Anna, she’s Linda herself, and she takes care of me.

Kimberly Hubenette: That’s great. There’s somebody out there for everybody. And there’s certain things in life at different stages in life. What I’m hearing from you is that you could have Anna, then you can have a Linda, and you can still be surviving and thriving?

Dr. William Quan: Yes. I have a 90 year old friend who’s named Willie. He’s 90 years old, and he’s doing the same thing I am doing. He’s still thriving. He’s learning. He wants to be 100 years old in another 10 years. He’s very open. We have dinner together every two weeks when I’m down here, and we share things. He tells me what he’s doing. I tell him what I’m doing. And I saw this movie called Winchester ’73. One of the key statements in Winchester ’73 was you have to be adaptable. There are things that happen to you. You have to cope with it. Life is not set according to a certain path. You have to cope with it. And Winchester ’73 also made another comment, the guy had a good sidekick. If you have a friend, you’re rich because you have someone you can share your life with. And I know Kimberly has a lot of friends. I only have a few. I’d probably only count my friends, and she has many friends. So Kimberly is a little more modern than I am. But I’m older than her by almost 30 years, so when she’s my age, she can write another book about how life is because she’ll be smart. I watched my daughter grow up, and her life was bumpy too. She became one of the best dentists in California right now, and I only trust my teeth in her. She only trusts her teeth in mine. It’s mutual. We compare notes on how to work on our patients, and she has different ideas than I do. Practicing dentistry is also like going through life on a bumpy road. There’s different paths, different solutions for the same problem. When I’m working on a tooth, I encounter this problem, I can go one way, or I can go another way, or somewhere in the middle. And it’s based on my experience which way I pick for the patient. And like Kimberly and I, we talk about stuff like that, like, how do you cope with this? How do you cope with that? We have to be open. 

Kimberly says that I’m her mentor. But you know what? She asked me early in her career when she was just starting out, what’s interesting guys, you have to note it. Kimberly went to the same dental school. She had the same instructors and professors that I did. It took most of us eight years to go from undergrad through dental school. Eight years. Kimberly went through after she got out of high school. She only took six years to finish dental school, so that tells me a lot. She was smarter than the rest of us, and she was able to cope with it. And then another thing, some of my professors in dental school, I thought they were pardoned upon assholes. They would treat us very strictly and stuff. I hated them, some of them. One professor, and she knows who it is. The day before I got my diploma, he treated me like dirt. I wasn’t a dentist. Then I got my diploma, and the guy comes up to me the next day like, I’m a doctor. Now, I’m a dentist. I have a diploma. And the day before, I was dirt. This day, he patted me on the shoulder. He goes, Quan, welcome to the club. That means I’m his equal. And I thought about hitting him. I thought about knocking him out. Because one day I was dirt, and the next day I was his equal. He should have treated us like his equal from the start. Well, they don’t do that anymore, thank goodness. I’m glad. And another thing was, after Kim got done with dental school, they asked her to be a professor. They didn’t ask me to be a professor. I could be a professor today, but they asked her immediately after dental school to be a professor. And she was a professor there. Do the new professors treat the students more like people?

Kimberly Hubenette: Yes. Life is interesting. My father and I share two things. We’re both widows and widowers. We’re both dentists. He’s my mentor, and he’s my dad. I’m his daughter, and we share a family. 

Dr. William Quan: I’m very lucky to have Kimberly as my daughter. This lady of Mark. And she’s smart enough to put her thoughts on her journey through life on the book so others can read it. 

Kimberly Hubenette: Now you know one thing that I do, and my listeners should know this too, is that I put together outdoor lifestyle types of programs for people that have lost their loved ones, or people that are challenged by hardships. I’ve been taking them on hikes. I’ve been taking and sharing with them things that they could do in a wellness retreat. And my outdoor wellness grief retreat is hiking. It’s going to learn how to do a trap shoot or learn how to fish, because I’ve learned these things through growing up with my family, my father, my brothers, and I want to share that with you guys. So if you ever are in my area or want to find out how to reach me, go to my website at www.drkimberlyhubenette.com, and you can talk and find me through there. You can find what I’m doing. You can find my dental office if you want to look for dentistry, but you can also find me through my books. If you want to learn about these outdoor retreats that I host every year, I host about three of them a year, mostly in the summertime, June, July, August and September.

And then I’m also doing once a year, a wellness retreat that is called a Destination Wellness Retreat. Last year, we did it in Cabo San Lucas, and I’m looking for times in Spain and Italy because we want to walk the Camino. So if you are interested, why don’t you drop me a chat on my Instagram or Facebook, or send me an email at my email address, livelovesurvivethrive@gmail.com, and we can chat. So folks, it’s been real. It’s been wonderful having my father be a guest, and maybe he’ll come on again in a future episode, but make it a great day. I’m Dr. Kimberly Hubenette, and this is my father, Dr. William Quan, and we’re saying goodbye for now. We’ll see you next time. Bye, bye. 

Thank you for joining me on this episode of Live, Love, Survive, Thrive! I hope our time together has inspired you to embrace life’s challenges, find the courage to overcome obstacles, and create a life filled with love, purpose and fulfillment. If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast. Your feedback means the world to me, and to help us continue to bring you stories and tools to empower your journey. And if you have a story of resilience, transformation or thriving after adversity, I’d love to hear from you. Reach out to me directly at livelovesurvivethrive@gmail.com. You never know, your story might just be the inspiration someone else needs to hear. 

To learn more about me and my work, visit my website at www.drkimberlyhubenette.com. While you’re there, be sure to check out my current book, GRID: Once In A Lifetime, You Get To Start Over, a guide to rebuilding and rediscovering life after loss. Get a sneak peek at my upcoming book, Live, Love, Survive, Thrive!, a powerful companion to this podcast, and a heartfelt roadmap to reclaiming joy, resilience and meaning after life’s toughest seasons. You can also connect with me on social media. Follow me on Facebook at authordr.kimberlyhubenette. Follow me on Instagram with the same name, and subscribe to my Youtube channel at Live, Love, Survive, Thrive! for more inspiration and insights. 

Remember, you have the power within you to write your story and thrive beyond your wildest imaginations. Keep relearning to live love, survive, thrive every single day. Until next time, I’m Dr. Kimberly Hubenette, and this is Live, Love, Survive, Thrive!